VIDEO: REPARATIONS: A STATUS REPORT - FRONTIERS INT. PANEL APRIL 25, 2026

The Plainfield, New Jersey chapter of Frontiers International, one of the oldest Black service organizations in the United States, recently hosted a panel discussion on the state of reparations in New Jersey. The panel featured Dr. Jean-Pierre Brutus of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and New Jersey Reparations Council, the renowned organizer Lawrence Hamm, sociologist and congressional candidate Dr. Akil Khalfani, and Diocese of New Jersey Reparations Commission historian Dr. Jolyon Pruszinski. Frontiers has posted the video recording of the panel on their Youtube channel. Many thanks for the invite!

VIDEO: DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY RESEARCH AT AHA WITH HSEC

The most recent newsletter from the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC), The Clearinghouse, highlights research from the Diocese of New Jersey, with video! As part of a panel on reparations research and initiatives in the Episcopal Church organized by HSEC, the Diocesan Reparations Commission historian, Dr. Jolyon Pruszinski, presented on his recent research and the reparations initiatives in the Diocese of New Jersey at the American Historical Association (AHA) national conference in Chicago on January 10, 2026. The HSEC writes: "Watch a timely and important panel discussion, Anglican Slavery in New Jersey: Reparations Work in the Diocese of New Jersey and the Episcopal Church, available on the Historical Society’s YouTube Channel. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in January 2026, this session brings together leading scholars and church historians to examine the complex legacy of Anglican involvement in slavery and the ongoing work of reparations within the Episcopal Church. Through thoughtful conversation, the panel explores how historical research is uncovering long-overlooked connections between Anglican institutions and slavery in New Jersey—and how this work is shaping efforts toward truth-telling, reconciliation, and repair today. Featuring: The Rev. Dr. Valerie Bailey (Moderator), Dr. Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski (Princeton University), The Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook (Historiographer of the Episcopal Church). The discussion highlights the vital role of archival research, institutional accountability, and theological reflection in advancing meaningful reparations initiatives." Many thanks to Matthew Payne of the HSEC for producing the video of the event, and to Drs. Bailey and Kujawa-Holbrook for the invite!

NEWS: STATIONS OF REPARATIONS HONOR BLACK CHURCH HISTORY

"Eugenia Wilson sings during the Stations of Reparations service
held at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey."
Photo by Peter Tobia, courtesy Faith & Leadership.

Annette John-Hall, of Duke Divinity School's Faith & Leadership Journal, just published an article on the most recent Diocese of New Jersey Reparations Commission's Stations of Reparations Service which was held on March 21, 2026 at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, Elizabeth, New Jersey. In the article, titled "Stations of Reparations honor Black church history" she writes: "The Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey pauses annually during Lent to reflect on the effect of systemic racism on its Black parishes. Along with acknowledging its own history, the diocese has worked for reparations at the state level with religious and secular organizations." To read more about the service, the historical research that goes into it, and the reparative justice initiatives that the Commission has been engaged in read the article for free HERE.

St. Peter's, Perth Amboy: Stations of Reparations Address, March 21, 2026

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy

Stations of Reparations Service, March 21, 2026 

Held at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, Elizabeth, NJ

Based on the address delivered by Louis E. Gumbs, Jr.

Edited by Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski

 

Integrated Children's Ministry at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy, 1958.
From Executive Committee, St. Peter's Building Program, 3.
Photo by Ernest Jones. MSS held at St. Peter's. Used with permission.

Hello everyone, my name is Louis Gumbs and I am here representing St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. St. Peter’s is the oldest church in the Diocese of New Jersey. It was founded in the late seventeenth century and was very influential in the growth of the Church in New Jersey. 

Because it is such an old parish St. Peter’s has a long and complicated history with racism. For over one hundred years, Perth Amboy was the primary location for importing enslaved people into New Jersey,[1] and even the very positive parish history book written over eighty years ago acknowledges that in the colonial era all of the White Anglicans who went to St. Peter’s were enslavers.[2] But even from this early time Black people were considered part of the church.[3]

As the gradual emancipation of enslaved Black people slowly changed race relations in New Jersey up to the time of the Civil War, some free Black people worshipped at St. Peter’s. Among them was Thomas Mundy Peterson, the first Black man to vote in New Jersey following the enactment of the fifteenth amendment. The state holiday celebrating his life is actually less than two weeks away, on March 31.[4]

So St. Peter’s has welcomed Black congregants for much of its long history, but not always on equal terms. For many years there was a separate Black mass, and Black people had to sit in the back of the church during integrated services. In the early twentieth century this was actually significantly more welcoming than some neighboring Episcopal churches, like Christ Church, South Amboy and Trinity, Woodbridge where Black Episcopalians were not welcome at all.[5]

But even this partial integration was inadequate for the Reverend Canon George Hogan Boyd, the priest who came to St. Peter’s in 1935 and faithfully served the parish for four decades.[6] Soon after his arrival Canon Boyd insisted on full integration. No longer would there be separate Black services, or separate Black seating. Under his leadership Black parishioners were treated as full members of the church. 

Following this change Black parishioners were elected to the vestry.[7] Black aspirants to the priesthood like Carlton Hazell were sponsored for seminary education as early as the 1940s.[8] Members of the parish fondly remember Canon Boyd for buying skates for the Black children of the parish and taking them ice skating.[9] Parish photographs and promotional materials from the 1950s show full racial integration of the life of the church.[10]

Detail of church leaders of St. Peter's, Perth Amboy, 1958.
From Executive Committee, St. Peter's Building Program, 6. 
Photo by Ernest Jones. MSS held at St. Peter's. Used with permission.

But it was not all easy or simple. At the time that Canon Boyd insisted on full integration, a significant number of White parishioners left to join an all-White Episcopal church in Perth Amboy.[11] There is a story about St. Peter’s told by Father Rod Croes that the last excommunication allowed in the diocese occurred at St. Peter’s when a member of the lay leadership refused to cooperate with integration.[12]

But it was during this time in the nineteen-fifties, when I was a child, that my family joined St. Peter’s. My father had been raised Anglican on the island of Anguilla and had heard about how welcoming Canon Boyd was. And that welcome has been my experience at St. Peter’s. 

Growing up in Perth Amboy, segregation was not obvious to me. It was only after I went away to college, and experienced overt racism, that I began to be able to see the subtle ways that Perth Amboy was still segregated and, at times, racist. But over time that began to change. Canon Boyd was part of that too. He was deeply involved in the community and successfully worked to integrate the YMCA and other organizations. Even when chapters of the Episcopal Youth Organization from other churches were not happy that our integrated chapter participated in diocesan events, he supported us and there was never anything from him but nurture. Because of his influence, he set the tone for equality and welcome at St. Peter’s.

Over the years my extended family has been involved both at St. Peter’s and at St. James AME church in Perth Amboy. The relationship between these two congregations has been an organic product of family connection and welcome. But even in spite of long years of relationship and support there have been challenges. When St. Peter’s called its first Black woman priest about fifteen years ago, the Rev. Dr. Anne-Marie Jaffrey, a few people left because they didn’t want a Black priest.[13] But those who remained have continued the tradition of welcome and equality. 

Perth Amboy has changed a lot since the fifties and has become majority-Hispanic.[14] St. Peter’s has worked to adapt and welcome Hispanic families as well, including through Spanish language services starting under Father Rod and now with the help of Father Villalobos. I’ve served in leadership on the vestry and as warden since 2011. I’ve experienced racism in my professional life, often as the only Black employee at elite firms, and I’ve experienced racism at times in my community, but St. Peter’s has been a place where I have always felt welcome and equal. For the first time in our history we currently have Black parishioners serving as both Junior and Senior Warden. I’d like to think we keep the spirit of Thomas Mundy Peterson alive at St. Peter’s, insisting on the equal place of Black people both in our society and in the Episcopal Church.

---

[1] See Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, “Perth Amboy Ferry Slip: A Site of Memory,” DNJRJR (15 July 2024): https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2024/07/perth-amboy-ferry-slip-site-of-memory.html.

[2] William C. McGinnis, History of St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy, New Jersey 1685-1956 (Woodbridge, NJ: Woodbridge Publishing Co., 1956), 71.

[3] According to the very hagiographic history of the parish, “St. Peter’s church schools even before the Revolution provided for the secular as well as the spiritual education of Negro children.” McGinnis, History of St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy, 71-72.

[4] See “Joint Resolution No. 1,” https://pub.njleg.gov/bills/9899/pl98/1001_.htm, and Office of the Mayor, “Perth Amboy Celebrates the 153^rdThomas Mundy Peterson Day,” https://www.perthamboynj.org/community/news/what_s_new/celebrating_thomas_mundy_peterson_day.

[5] Interview with Louis E. Gumbs, Jr. and Lisa Nanton, March 10, 2026. Conducted by Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski.

[6] See the obituary “Canon George Boyd St. Peter’s rector” in The News Tribune, Woodbridge, NJ (July 29, 1983). MSS held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy.

[7] See vestry minutes from across the 1950s. MSS held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy.

[8] See, for example, Minutes from “St. Peter’s Special Vestry Meeting – June 20, 1950.” MSS held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy.

[9] A story relayed by the long-serving rector Fr. Rod Croes, retold in Interview with Louis E. Gumbs, Jr. and Lisa Nanton, March 10, 2026.

[10] Executive Committee, St. Peter’s Building Program (Perth Amboy: Modern Printing Industries, 1958).  MSS held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy.  

[11] According to the recollection of family members of Louis Gumbs, Jr, retold in Interview with Louis E. Gumbs, Jr. and Lisa Nanton, March 10, 2026.

[12] Shared viva voce at the Watchung Clericus, March 12, 2024, at Calvary Episcopal Church, Flemington, New Jersey.

[13] Interview with Louis E. Gumbs, Jr. and Lisa Nanton, March 10, 2026.

[14] The city is now over 83% Hispanic according to the United States Census Bureau, “2020 Decennial Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171),” published in 2021.

EVENT: Author-led Book Group on "Anglican Slavery in New Jersey"

The Reparations Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey invites you to a free, author-led, Zoom book group on the recently released Anglican Slavery in New Jersey: An Initial Accounting with author Jolyon Pruszinski. Jolyon is a lecturer in the Departments of Religion and History at Princeton University and the research historian for the Reparations Commission. All are welcome (no need to be Episcopalian or from New Jersey). The book group will run on Thursday nights at 7-8pm (ET) from April 16 to May 21, 2026. To pre-register (required to receive the Zoom link) CLICK HERE. The pre-reading for the week 1 discussion is available online through google books. Full digital copies of the book are available for $9.99 on Amazon. Discounted print copies (50% off) will be available in-person at the March 21, 2026 Stations of Reparations Service at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, Elizabeth, New Jersey; or you can receive a publisher's coupon code for 40% off when you sign up for the publisher's digital newsletter. 

In order to make for the best possible discussions, if you are able please read the following sections in advance (page numbers are for the print version):

for April 16... pages xi-xxxii (front matter),

for April 23... pages 3-39 (chapters 1-6),

for May 7... pages 41-73 (chapters 7-10),

for May 14... pages 77-119 (chapters 11-13),

for May 21... pages 123-145 (chapter 14 & epilogue.

We hope you'll be able to attend!

DAILY BLACK HISTORY MONTH POSTS - LIST

"Black History Month Design" by Marina Shemesh (License: CC0 Public Domain)

This year for Black History Month we posted every day on the DNJRJR Facebook page about Black history in the Diocese of New Jersey. We want this to be available as a resource for the future so here are the posts in order:

1) REV. PETER WILLIAMS (1786-1840): SECOND ORDAINED AFRICAN AMERICAN PRIEST IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

2) REV. JAMES C. WARD (1777-1834): FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN CLERGYMAN IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

3) THE EPISCOPAL MISSION AT THE FREE BLACK SETTLEMENT OF MACEDONIA, NEW JERSEY (1853-1887)

4) JOHN N. STILL (1815-?): FIRST BLACK CANDIDATE FOR HOLY ORDERS IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

5) JOHN STILL'S CALL TO RESIST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

6) A HISTORY OF TRINITY AND ST. PHILIP'S CATHEDRAL

7) THE EARLIEST BLACK CHURCH LEADERSHIP IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

8) TINTON FALLS AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND: A SITE OF MEMORY

9) THE ENSLAVED IN THE PARISH REGISTER AT CHRIST CHURCH SHREWSBURY

10) THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD AND EARLY BLACK ESTRANGEMENT FROM THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

11) EMANCIPATED AFRICAN AMERICANS LEAVING THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH: A CASE STUDY FROM MIDDLETOWN, NJ

12) SOURLAND AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO LEFT THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

13) SUPPORT FOR THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

14) EARLY AFRICAN MISSION GIVING (FOREIGN) IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY (1835-1865)

15) BISHOP DOANE'S 1854 REPARATIONS MANDATE

16) THE FREEDMAN'S COMMISSION AND THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

17) "HOME MISSIONS TO COLORED PEOPLE" AND THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY (1877-1900)

18) BISHOP SCARBOROUGH'S CONVENTION ADDRESS OF 1890

19) THOMAS AND CARRIE FORTUNE OF ST. THOMAS', RED BANK

20) REV. EUGENE L. HENDERSON: FIRST BLACK PRIEST ORDAINED IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

21) REV. EARL B. SCOTT (1919-1984): UBE NAMESAKE

22) INTERVIEW WITH MS. KATHLEEN MONTGOMERY EDWARDS (1924-2000)

23) THE VERY REV. CN. DR. SANDYE A. WILSON (EULOGY)

24) INTERVIEW WITH MS. NATALIECE MOORE (ST. AUGUSTINE'S, CAMDEN)

25) ST. AUGUSTINE'S ASBURY PARK

26) BLACK CLERGY AND DELAGATES VISION STATEMENT (1996)

27) "REPARATION: MY TAKE" - CN. NOREEN DUNCAN

28) REPARATIONS COUNCIL REPORT (2025)

Why do Churches do Memory Work?

Emily S. Pruszinski, Executive Director, Fellowship for Protestant Ethics
(the author)

Too often throughout history leaders and members of the church have provided theological cover for injustices both small and great in scale. Too often the church has reaped the benefits of injustice instead of refusing to receive ill-gotten gain, or denounce those who exploited their fellow human beings. Too often members of the church, out of greed and a lust to dominate, have actively participated in perpetrating injustice, all while remaining “in good standing” within their local church bodies. Too often the church actively promotes a culture of forgetfulness, in which the details of these stories are quickly and conveniently forgotten. In each case, the victims of injustice are ignored, their cries unheard or silenced, their stories buried or erased (the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review has chronicled many such examples). But Christians have many good reasons to remember wrongs, and to work to make them right.

The opportunity and, dare I say, requirement to remember our past is integral to our liturgy. Throughout Christian liturgy we remember the past for its importance for the present. And in so doing, we remember, not just the life of Jesus, but our own past as well. This latter memory is most obvious during the general confession.[1] Confession requires memory of past wrongdoing, both recent and distant. And the text of the confession does not use I language, but WE language. We confess our sins against God and neighbor. We confess that we have done wrong and not done right. And this “we” language matters for how we understand memory.

As Christians we are part of a global church, and as Episcopalians we are part of the global Anglican communion. Each time we gather for corporate prayer and worship, and each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we gather not just with a single living congregation, but with all the simultaneously living members of the global church, and the dead members of both our particular church and our larger communion.[2]

Our present church community exists in continuity with those who have gone before us. Our group – the Church – includes its dead members spiritually, in prayer and in memory,[3] and physically, in the ways that our church architecture includes burial grounds, columbaria, memorial gardens, and plaques. We have integrated the memory of our church founders and former esteemed members into our buildings, and though at times we may forget, we are the spiritual descendants of these, now silent, but still present members of our communion. These are our religious ancestors. We may not be related to them genetically, but we are related to them through our common participation in a particular church, in a particular location, over time. By participating in, and being confirmed in, the Church we become inheritors of their legacies. 

Our liturgy reminds us in countless ways that we are in communion with members of the faith both living and dead. But speaking particularly, using WE language in our corporate confession of sin specifically includes not only the people we see in church each Sunday, but also the people who sat in our pews fifty, one hundred, even two-hundred years ago. When we, the living, confess and ask for forgiveness, we do so on behalf of the dead as well.[4]  

But there’s more. Through liturgical acts of confession and repentance we express our desire to walk in God’s ways,[5] to treat our neighbors in ways that would delight God, and to be God’s hands and feet on this earth. Our confession comes packaged with responsibility to do right by our neighbors here and now.[6] This entails fixing the harms of the past that continue to affect our neighbors in the present. 

How can we do what is necessary to repair the harms of the past, if we forget those harms? If we forget who the victims were (and are)? The short answer is “We can’t.” Such ill-informed efforts will be misdirected and inadequate. Or worse, we will not even see how or why we should exert effort to make repairs in the first place. 

This, in short, is the reason churches should, and do, engage in memory work. Widespread poverty, racial injustice, job and housing insecurity, chronic illness from exposure to environmentally harbored toxins, lack of access to healthcare resources, and violent police tactics are all indicators of a broken system. Our religious ancestors either actively created the injustices themselves, created the conditions for these present injustices to become possible, or suffered under similar conditions. Knowing the details enables informed and effective responses.

In Germany, generations born after World War II have had to work to uncover the evils done by their ancestors, many of which were deliberately hidden. This became known as the “dig where you stand,” movement,[7] and has been oriented around documenting what can be found about the past in an effort to work for a more just world. As Episcopalians[8] we too have inherited a legacy of injustices where we now worship, even when we don’t know it. For us to “dig where we stand” involves first examining how our religious ancestors perpetrated, and cooperated with harm. Then it involves allowing those memories to guide us as we discern how to take responsibility for reparative justice in our present. If we are to repent effectively for the wrongs we are implicated in, wrongs which continue to cause injustice today, we have to know what those wrongs have been so that we can take appropriate steps to remedy them.

 

Emily S. Pruszinski

Executive Director, Fellowship for Protestant Ethics

Doctoral Candidate in Theology, Ethics, and Politics

Princeton Theological Seminary

---

[1] E.g. from Holy Eucharist I (BCP 331): “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable…. Forgive us all that is past…” Or “We confess that we have sinned against thee in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved thee with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” Emphasis added. In all this language the past tense is conspicuous. In Episcopal worship accurate memory of the past is critical to confession and repentance. One could argue that liturgically emphasized memories of Jesus are meant to provide a counterpoint to our memories of the ways we have fallen short of his life, teachings, and ideals.

[2] The Prayers of the People set us in direct relation to, and community with the dead. See, for instance, “The Prayers of the People,” in Holy Eucharist I (Book of Common Prayer [henceforth, BCP], 328-330).

[3] E.g. from Holy Eucharist I (BCP, 330): “And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear… beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service; and to grant us grace so to follow the good examples of… all thy saints, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.” Emphasis added.

[4] And in some liturgies we acknowledge explicitly that they have done harm of which we are the beneficiaries when we repent of “both the evils we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” The Church Pension Fund, “Confession,” in Enriching Our Worship 1 (New York: Church Publishing, 1998), 19.

[5] E.g. BCP, 331.

[6] John the Baptist’s proclamation “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt 3:8; Luke 3:8), and Paul’s “do deeds consistent with repentance” (Acts 26:20) are relevant here.

[7] Reinhard Bernbeck and Susan Pollock, “‘Grabe, Wo Du Stehst!’ An Archaeology of Perpetrators,” in Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics, edited by Yannis Hamilakis and Philip Duke (New York: Routledge, 2016), 217-233.

[8] Though the same pattern holds for all Christians and, indeed, all people of good will.